Bradley Manning pleads guilty in WikiLeaks case, faces 20 years

He is accused of the biggest leak of classified material in US history

The Army private accused in the biggest leak of classified material in US history could face 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to 10 charges, saying he wanted to expose the US military's disregard for human life in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Military prosecutors said they plan to move forward with a court-martial on the 12 remaining charges against Bradley Manning, including aiding the enemy, which carries a potential life sentence.

For the first time, Manning directly admitted leaking the material to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks and detailed the frustrations that led him to do it.

"I began to become depressed at the situation we found ourselves mired in year after year. In attempting counterinsurgency operations, we became obsessed with capturing and killing human targets on lists," the 25-year-old former intelligence analyst in Baghdad told a military judge.     He added: "I wanted the public to know that not everyone living in Iraq were targets to be neutralized."     

The slightly built soldier from Oklahoma read from a 35-page statement through his wire-rimmed glasses for more than an hour. He spoke quickly and evenly, showing little emotion even when he described how troubled he was by what he had seen.

The judge, Col. Denise Lind, accepted his plea to 10 charges involving illegal possession or distribution of classified material. Manning was allowed to plead guilty under military regulations instead of federal espionage law, which knocked the potential sentence down from 92 years.

He will not be sentenced until his court-martial on the other charges is over.  

Manning admitted sending hundreds of thousands of Iraq and Afghanistan battlefield reports, State Department diplomatic cables, other classified records and two battlefield video clips to WikiLeaks in 2009 and 2010.

He said he was disturbed by the conduct of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the way American troops treated the populace. He said he did not believe the release of the information would harm the US.

"I believed that if the general public, especially the American public, had access to the information ... This could spark a domestic debate on the role of the military and our foreign policy in general," Manning said.

Manning said he was appalled by 2007 combat video of an assault by a US helicopter that killed 11 men, including a Reuters news photographer. The Pentagon concluded the troops mistook the camera equipment for weapons.

"The most alarming aspect of the video to me was the seemingly delightful bloodlust the aerial weapons team happened to have," Manning said, adding that the soldiers' actions "seemed similar to a child torturing ants with a magnifying glass."

As for the sensitive State Department cables, he said they "documented backdoor deals and criminality that didn't reflect the so-called leader of the free world."

"I thought these cables were a prime example of the need for a more open diplomacy," Manning said. "I believed that these cables would not damage the United States. However, I believed these cables would be embarrassing."

The battlefield reports were the first documents Manning decided to leak. He said he sent them to WikiLeaks after contacting The Washington Post and The New York Times. He said he felt a reporter at the Post didn't take him seriously, and a message he left for news tips at the Times was not returned. Times spokeswoman Eileen Murphy said yesterday of the purported phone call: "This is news to us."